


Midnight Hour

by klainederful



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Ezekiel-centric, First Kiss, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e08 And the Point of Salvation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, takes place after the end of season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7948219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klainederful/pseuds/klainederful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>His mask has cracked in the game, and now its jagged edges press into his skin, slicing it with every new lie, every fake smile</i>
</p><p>(In which Ezekiel remembers everything.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first fic in this fandom, and I'm slightly terrified...anyway, I hope you enjoy it! *hides*

 

_“Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?”_

― Søren Kierkegaard

 

 

“This isn’t real. There are no consequences,” Cassandra whispers over and over as the rage people storm into the room, eyes red, ready to tear them all apart. Her words get stuck into Ezekiel’s mind, a mantra, a prayer, a flicker of hope to hold on to as he watches his friends die again and again, unable to save them, unable to find a way out. They give him the courage he needs to pick himself up and start all over again after every reset, knowing that he’ll probably end up leading his friends to their deaths once again. He does it a hundred times. Two hundred. Three.

He loses count after that, but he knows he can’t stand to watch them be killed anymore, to hear Cassandra’s terrified screams as the rage people tear into her, see Eve’s desperate eyes as she realizes she can’t protect them, not from this.

And Jake. His blood is always the first to be spilled, staining the floor and his clothes as the rage people rip his body apart, and Ezekiel’s heart with it. He can’t watch that any more. He won’t.

So he shoves Jake aside, shields his friends with his body; and then they’re back at the save point and Jake’s voice shouting Ezekiel’s name is still ringing in his ears. Desperate. Afraid. Ezekiel shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, but his hands are shaking badly from a level of panic he hasn’t felt in years, hoped never to feel again. He just wants it to stop, but every time Jake bumps against him as he goes through the door and then puts a warm hand on Ezekiel’s back to steady him, Ezekiel straightens his back and, somehow, finds the strength to keep going.

Looking at Jake’s face, eyes wide in wonder as he explains the video game thing all over again, he knows he can’t give up. He’s the only one who remembers, so it’s his responsibility to save them all this time. And he will. Ezekiel Jones doesn’t lose.

“I can’t watch you die anymore,” he tells them after locking them up, letting some of his desperation seep into his voice. They look at him, dismayed and speechless, but they don’t get it, not really. They don’t remember.

Ezekiel starts losing himself in the game, the routine of looking for a way past the rage people, dying and starting all over again. He recites the same lines to get his friends to follow him, then locks them away. He tells them different things each time, “You’re my friends”, and “I love you” and “I’m going to get you out”. The words leave his lips without his usual filter to hold them back. Without consequences, Ezekiel is not afraid of honesty. He takes one of them with him each time to help him solve the game’s puzzles, and every time he tells them the truth. He tells Cassandra how much he admires her, how he feels she’s the first real friend he’s ever had. To Baird, he tells that he hadn’t known what having a parent meant until after she met her, who loved and cared for them just as fiercely as a mother would. He doesn’t tell Jake anything, because no words are needed, or maybe he can’t find the right ones. Instead, right in front of the pipes he just helped him fix, Ezekiel just brushes his lips over Jake’s. There are no consequences.

It’s only when they part that panic starts to flood Ezekiel’s veins, thick and hot and unstoppable, the phantoms of his past gathering on the edges of his vision, demanding attention. Jake’s lips part like he’s about to say something, but Ezekiel is terrified to find out what. Before Jake can make a sound, he scrambles back and runs toward the gate and the rage people without looking back, heart pounding with fear and shame.

This time, when the game resets, he brings Baird with him, and he knows she can see through his confident, unaffected mask. She asks him “how many times?”, but he doesn’t know. She tells him a story, and he sees himself as a hero in her eyes, feels the wish to be that person burn him like fire. He lets her tell that story over and over, reset after reset, so that she can look at him that way. He doesn’t want to disappoint her.

So he keeps trying, ignoring the burn in his eyes, the lump in his throat, the twist in his gut. He keeps trying, and eventually he finds a way. Cheating, just like he would. Ezekiel Jones, the thief. Ezekiel Jones, the arrogant, irresponsible one. The little brother. Not the hero.

The mask he’s worked so hard to build over the years is so convincing it turned into his real face, and now no one will believe him unless he has proof. Which he doesn’t, because the game is crashing and nothing is where it’s supposed to be anymore. So he looks at Jake, even though it hurts, and at Eve and Cassandra, and he does the only thing he can: he takes his mask off completely, lets it drown under the tide of his feelings. And they follow him.

And this time, it’s real. There will be no reset, not with the game crashing all around them at alarming speed. There will be consequences.

Ezekiel watches as his friends jump over the chasm and make it to the save point unscathed, then tosses his empty backpack to the ground with a smile. They’re all looking at him with wide, concerned eyes, but they have nothing to fear now. He did it. He saved them.

He jumps.

***

After they bring him back, relief is rapidly followed by panic and fear, and Ezekiel pretends not to remember what happened. There are too many things he’s done that he doesn’t want them to remember. Too many things he’s said. He looks at Jake and forces a smile on his lips, jokes and chats with the others as if nothing has changed. But the game has left cracks on his mask and it’s just a matter of time before someone notices, so he does his best to patch it up and move on. They find Prospero, they fight, they win. They save the world. But Ezekiel can’t sleep without having nightmares, can’t look at his friends’ faces without remembering how they looked twisted in fear and covered in blood. Can’t help but remember the taste of Jake’s lips against his, the tingles on his skin before he ran off like a coward. He wishes he could forget, but at the same time he doesn't want to, because he knows that’s the only memory of a shared kiss he’ll ever have. He’s not brave enough to try again. Not in real life, where there’s no reset, where he’ll have to face the consequences.

He starts avoiding Jake as much as he can, because being close to him makes Ezekiel feel reckless and desperate, and he needs all his wits about him if he wants to keep his secrets. However, he soon learns that those kinds of secrets are too big and too sharp to be kept hidden for long, and they slice through his mask as if it were butter. They slip through the cracks, manifesting as twinges of panic that make Ezekiel’s chest hurt, or sudden flashes of memories that make his eyes go wide and unfocused for a while.

It is, of course, Cassandra who notices first. He’s not surprised, and he knows what she’s going to say even before she approaches him with her big eyes full of worry.

“Are you okay?”

He’s so far from okay, he doesn't even know what okay means anymore. So he smirks and says: “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

She smiles back at him, but it's a sad smile, and Ezekiel knows she knows.

Somehow, sharing the truth with someone else makes it a little more bearable, and for a time Ezekiel thinks he can actually manage to forget just enough to stop being haunted by bloody, screaming ghosts all the time. That is, until they're on a mission and there's a door between them and the artifact they have to recover, and an angry, growling guardian just a few steps behind them.

“I’ll distract it, you take care of the door.” Eve says, gun ready and eyes blazing. She runs off, making as much noise as possible to draw the creature to her, and Ezekiel is left with a lock to open and two pairs of eyes watching him expectantly. As he gets to work, his skin gets clammy with sweat, his heart speeding unreasonably. He ignores the rising panic and starts picking the lock, knowing the others are counting on him, knowing they couldn’t do it by themselves. Just like they couldn't beat the game.

A loud crash comes from behind them, followed by a gunshot, and Cassandra’s head whips towards the sound, her hair brushing Ezekiel’s face in the process. All he sees is a red blur in his periphery, and suddenly it's not hair anymore, but blood. He starts so badly he drops his lock pick, his hands shaking too much to hold it. As he closes his fists and his eyes, trying to regain control of his body, he can practically hear the eye-roll in Jake's voice when he says: "Some master thief."

And just like that, Ezekiel shatters. His throat tightens, his chest burns, and he’s hit by a wave of heat that leaves him nauseous and dizzy. He gulps uselessly as black creeps on the edges of his vision and his eyes widen in panic. He’s in front of the door and then he’s in the game again and he can’t find a way out and he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t-

“Jones. Jones!”

There's something warm on his face, and when he opens his eyes is to find Jake's face mere inches from his, his hands framing his face. His closeness doesn't help with Ezekiel’s breathing at all, so he pushes Jake away, ignoring the flash of hurt in his blue eyes.

He’s on the ground, although he doesn't remember falling. What he does remember is working on the lock, the sounds of Eve battling the guardian behind him and the blood...No, not the blood. That wasn't real.

He struggles to his feet, but his legs are wobbly and he stumbles and almost falls again, just to find Jake’s arms around his waist, supporting his weight. And why, why does Jake insist on touching him right when he’s trying to get his brain to work again?

“You’re okay,” Cassandra says, coming to stand next to him, a hand on his arm. It’s not a question, because she doesn’t need to ask, and Ezekiel is grateful for that. Her touch grounds him enough to finally ask: “Is Baird okay?”

“Peachy,” Eve emerges from around the corner as if summoned by his question, not a hair askew. “But we better hurry before that thing wakes up.”

So they do. Ezekiel breaks free of Jake’s grasp, careful not to look anyone in the eyes, and gets to work on the lock, which gives out almost immediately. Throughout the whole thing, he can feel Jake’s gaze boring into his skull, can feel his impatience to say something, to discuss what happened. But they’re Librarians, they have a mission to carry out and a beast-like guardian ready to wake up and attack them any minute. Conversations can wait until they’re back to the Annex and have delivered the artifact - an innocuous-looking brooch that turns the wearer’s body to ashes - to Jenkins’ impatient hands.

And, as far as Ezekiel is concerned, they can and will wait even more. As soon as they’re back, he runs to his room and locks himself in, ignoring Jake’s voice calling him and Baird’s anxious questions. The room is full of monitors and every kind of technology you could imagine, and there are plenty of places to sit, but Ezekiel ignores them in favor of slumping on the ground with his back to the door and his knees to his chest. He can hear his friends arguing downstairs, and his mind can’t help but conjure old memories of a similar scenario, a younger Ezekiel curled into a ball on his thin mattress listening to his parents shouting at each other, placing all the fault of their miserable existence on their unwanted, unloved, useless son.

It happened then, Ezekiel thinks with a shiver, and it’ll happen now. They’ll leave, all of them, and he’ll be alone again, with no one to blame but himself. Because it’s his fault, after all. He’s not strong enough to keep the memories from interfering with his job, and that puts them all in danger. How could anyone trust him during missions knowing he could break down right when he is most needed?

 “Jones,” Jake’s voice interrupts his thoughts, and Ezekiel hurries to wipe his cheeks dry with the back of his hands. “Ezekiel. Let me in, man.”

This is it, he thinks as he stands up. They’re about to tell him they don’t want him here anymore, and of course they sent Jake to do it. Jake, who can barely stand him most of the time, will be glad to be free of him for good.

That thought is like a blade that lodges itself in his chest, but Ezekiel is used to the pain by now. So he adopts his most nonchalant expression, carelessness with just a hint of defiance, and opens the door, steeling himself for the words that’ll come out of Jake’s mouth. But Jake is silent when he comes in, silent as he closes the door and sits on the floor with his back to it, unknowingly mirroring Ezekiel’s earlier position. Ezekiel wonders if he does it to stop him from running away again, or to stop anyone else from coming in. Neither option feels very reassuring.

Jake is anything but threatening, though. He sits with one leg bent, an arm resting over his knee and the other stretched out in front of him, and brings his head back to rest against the door. He sighs, but he still doesn’t say anything, and he still doesn’t look at Ezekiel.

And Ezekiel is definitely not looking at him, especially not at the exposed column of his neck, dammit. He sits next to him, but not too close, because his skin has started to itch the way it does whenever he thinks about the taste of his lips and the warmth of his breath on his skin. About how much he wants to kiss him again.

He slides down next to him instead, because his knees feel wobbly and weak all of a sudden, but not too close. And then Jake is speaking in a low murmur, his accent slipping out and turning the words into a pleasant drawl.

“Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask?” He’s finally turned his head towards Ezekiel, and his eyes look almost black in the low light of the room. “Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?” 

Ezekiel was expecting anger or contempt, not Jake’s soft gaze and whispered words, so he just blinks. “Uh?”

A corner of Jake’s lips quirks up, and he sighs. “Kierkegaard.”

Ezekiel’s first instinct is to nod like he knows who that is, but his mask has cracked in the game, and now its jagged edges press into his skin, slicing it with every new lie, every fake smile. The pain of yet another lie, however small and inconsequential, feels too much to bear right now.

Jake sighs and rights himself so that he’s no longer slumped against the door, shifting his body to face Ezekiel fully. “Point is, no one can hide forever, Jones, not even you.”

Ezekiel’s heartbeat roars in his ears, and this time he lies without even thinking about it. He shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mate.”

He expects Jake to lose his temper now, but he just keeps looking, pinning Ezekiel in place. “It’s exhausting, isn’t it? I should know, I do it, too. You’ve seen it.”

Ezekiel remembers Jake with his father, how wrong it had seemed to him that Jake should feel the need to hide like that, to smother all his brilliance under a cloak of mediocrity. But while Jake’s mask made him weaker, Ezekiel’s always makes him stronger, or at least that’s what he used to think. Now, as he looks into the stormy ocean of Jake’s blue eyes, he sees something in the waves, a thought, an idea. Maybe being strong doesn’t mean crushing all of his feelings under a mask of indifference and arrogance. Maybe it means facing them, being brave enough to acknowledge them and accept the consequences.

His mask has served him well over the years, but the truth is it has begun to splinter and crack way before the game, from the very moment he entered the Library for the first time and met the others. He’s used it as a shield against the wrong people, people who want to know him because they genuinely care about him, so that it’s become a burden, a curse. He wants to be free.

“How much?” Jake asks. “How much do you remember?”

And just like that, Ezekiel’s mask finally crumbles into dust, sliding off his face like dry tears and leaving him feeling lighter than he’s felt in a long time. He doesn’t need it anymore.

“Everything, okay?” He replies, voice cracking slightly. But his vulnerability is part of him, like everything else, and he won’t hide it anymore. “I remember every single moment I spent in that goddamn game and- and I still see you die, over and over, and I can’t take it anymore.”

Without his carefully constructed façade of indifference, Ezekiel feels overwhelmed, so he bows his head and takes a few breaths to calm himself down. It’s muscle memory, the actions of a frightened child who used to spend the night in dark alleys, alone and starving and jumping at every sound and every shadow, longing for someone, anyone, to wrap him in their arms and tell him it was going to be okay. But no one ever came. At least until now. Because now Jake is there, suddenly much closer than before, arms wrapped around Ezekiel’s body, chin resting on the top of his head. Ezekiel jumps in surprise, head-butting him in the process, and Jake pulls away with a startled: “Ow!”

Ezekiel doesn’t apologize, partly because Jake deserves it for hugging him so suddenly and rudely, forcing him to take note of how their bodies fit so well together and his strangely pleasant smell of aftershave and old books, and partly because his mind is occupied with a sudden, more pressing concern.

“Wait, how much do _you_ remember?” he asks, a touch of hysteria in his voice.

Because Jake hugging him should have felt awkward and new, but it hasn’t, even though they’ve never been that close before. Not in the real world, at least. And because Ezekiel has not become the best thief in the world by ignoring is instinct, which right now is telling him Jake’s behavior is suspicious.

Jake shrugs, but there’s a glint in his eyes Ezekiel doesn't want to put a name on. “I have dreams sometimes, about what happened there. The others, too. Seems like our subconscious remembers quite a lot after all.”

“But how,” Ezekiel flaps his mouth, the revelation sinking inside him like a rock, heavy with implications. “You didn't remember anything after every reset!”

The intensity of Jake's gaze sends a shiver down his spine as he replies: “Maybe some things are just too important to forget.”

Ezekiel has the sudden thought that his lack of sleep and constant state of panic must have finally driven him mad, because Jake is leaning close, impossibly so. He says: “Don’t run away this time.”

Then he’s kissing him, and it’s much better than it had been in the game, slow and deep and _real_. Jake is bending over him, one hand on the ground to keep his balance, the other cupping Ezekiel’s neck. The rough pads of his fingers dragging against his skin and the heat of his mouth make Ezekiel shiver, and a helpless, embarrassing sound escapes him before he has time to swallow it back. Jake laughs a low, rumbling laugh, and Ezekiel twists his hand in his hair in retaliation and bites down on his top lip like he imagined doing way too many times to count.

 _You’re not alone,_ Jake tells him with that kiss, with every puff of breath and slide of skin. _We’re all here for you_.

Ezekiel smiles against Jake's mouth, because he knows that now. He smiles because he’s not wearing a mask anymore, and because Cassandra was wrong, after all. The game _was_ real, and its consequences are etched on his psyche, on his soul. But he’s Ezekiel Jones, and he’ll turn those scars into strength. After all, he thinks as they part and Jake grins, brilliant and a bit shy, consequences can be a good thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! (◡‿◡✿)  
> If you want, you can find me [here](http://klainederful.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.  
> (I'm not a native English speaker, so if you notice any mistakes, please tell me so I can fix them!)


End file.
